Go Sober Challenge: Day 10 – Temptation Strikes

Huge thanks to everyone who has very kindly donated towards my Go Sober for October Challenge. So far we’ve raised £135 for Macmillan Cancer Support which is only £65 off my £200 target. Brilliant! If you haven’t donated already, maybe you could please help me get a little closer to my goal? No amount is too small.

I faced my first temptation at the weekend. First, my lovely other half sent me out to buy beer for him from the Co-Op on Sunday night while I was picking up our takeaway dinner. Just to explain, he wasn’t deliberately putting me in harm’s way, it was just that he was doing Stellan’s bedtime and I was ‘foraging’ for dinner. This is how we split the evening roles now we have a toddler – one parent does bedtime and the other is in charge of dinner.

“If you could find me something Belgian, that would be brilliant,” he’d said. I couldn’t find anything Belgian in the local Co-Op – not so much as a Poirot novel or a waffle – so he had to make do with Magner’s Cider and a Spanish IPA… Well, geography’s never been my strong point.

Now, I’ve bought beer before for him during the challenge to avoid alcohol throughout October and I’ve not been tempted to drink it. But I’d just had some bad news and I was feeling a bit stressed out. My Dad recently had a hip replacement operation and is having a much harder time recovering from it than he’d anticipated.

I’d just heard that he’d got a suspected blood clot in his leg and I was really worried about him. Looking at the cool beer in the store fridge, I was suddenly hit by the thought of how a really nice cold lager would help calm me down. Oh dear…

Fortunately, I didn’t give into the urge. After all, I couldn’t let down all those friends who had donated by doing that. The photo above of the Ribena Doug made me in a posh wine glass is proof (yes, it really is Ribena!). But it has made me realise that now and again I have used alcohol – albeit in just small quantities – as a crutch to soothe anxiety and maybe that it isn’t all that healthy.

And my Dad is now on medication for no less than two blood clots and doing OK at the moment, if shaken up. Here’s wishing him a speedy recovery. I’ll drink (a diet Coke) to that.